The document is a one-act play titled 'The Dear Departed' by William Stanley Houghton, which satirizes moral decay in the British middle class. The story revolves around the Slater and Jordan families as they navigate the aftermath of the death of patriarch Abel Merryweather, showcasing comedic interactions and the characters' opportunistic behaviors surrounding inheritance. Houghton skillfully demonstrates his gift for dialogue and character development through humor and irony.

1. The Dear Departed - 1 (One act Play)
-William Stanley Houghton

2. By
M PADMA LALITHA SHARADA
GHS MALAKPET
for
Class X English
APSCERT & TGSCERT
SYLLABUS
Sincere Thanks
To
Dr. D.N. KUMAR
CARE HOSPITALS

3. About the Author
William Stanley Houghton
(1881 - 1913) was a famous
English dramatist. He was
one of the best of a group of
realistic playwrights often
called the Manchester
School.
In every play he sought to
present an idea.

4. He had a remarkable gift for dialogue that is evident in
'The Dear Departed'. The Dear Departed was first
produced in Manchester in 1908. Here Houghton satirizes
the degradation of moral values in the British middle-
class.

5. Look at the picture and
answer the questions
that follow.
 1. Can you tell the name of
the person in this picture?
 2. What is he famous for?
 3. What type of characters
does he play in movies?
 4. Can you recall anything
comic associated with him?
Now let's read a play in
which the characters
behave in a humorous way.

6. The Dear Departed
Characters
 Mrs. Amelia Slater & Mrs. Elizabeth Jordan
(Sisters)
 Henry Slater & Ben Jordan
(Husbands of Amelia and Elizabeth)
 Victoria Slater - a girl of ten
(Amelia's daughter)
 Abel Merryweather
(father of Amelia and Elizabeth)

7. (When the curtain rises
Mrs. Slater is seen
laying the table. She is
a vigorous, plump, red-
faced, vulgar woman
prepared to do any
amount of straight
talking to get her own
way).

8. Mrs. Slater :
(sharply) Victoria,
Victoria! D'ye hear?
Come in, will you?
(She is in black. She goes to
the window, opens it and
calls into the street)

9. Mrs. Slater:
I'm amazed at you,
Victoria. I really am.
Be off now, and change
your dress before your
Aunt Elizabeth and your
Uncle Ben come.
It would never do for
them to find you in
colours with grandfather
lying dead, upstairs.

10. Victoria:
What are they coming for?
They haven't been here for ages.

11. Mrs. Slater:
They're coming to talk over poor grandpa's affairs. Your father
sent them a telegram as soon as we found he was dead.
(A noise is heard)

12. (Henry Slater, a
stooping, heavy
man with a
drooping
moustache,
enters.
He is wearing a
black tailcoat,
grey trousers, a
black tie and a
bowler hat.)

13. Henry:
I'm wondering if they'll come at all. When you and Elizabeth
quarrelled she said she'd never set foot in your house again.

14. Mrs. Slater:
She'll come fast enough after her share of what our father's
left. You know how hard she can be when she likes. Where
she gets it from I can't tell.

15. Henry : I suppose it's in the family. (pause) Where are my slippers?
(Briskly) here! You'd better wear these slippers of my father's now. It's
lucky he'd just got a new pair.
Mrs. Slater : In the kitchen; but
you want a new pair, those old
ones are nearly worn out.
(Nearly breaking down) You don't
seem to realize what it's costing
me to bear up like I am doing. My
heart's fit to break when I see the
little trifles that belonged to father
lying around, and think he'll never
use them again.

16. Henry :
They'll be very small for me, my dear.
Mrs. Slater :
They'll stretch, won't they? I'm not
going to have them wasted. (She
has finished laying the table.)
Henry, I've been thinking about
that bureau of my father's that's in
his bedroom.
You know I always wanted to have
it after he died.

17. Henry : You must arrange with
Elizabeth when you're dividing
things up.
Mrs. Slater : Elizabeth's that
sharp she'll see I'm after it, and
we'll drive a hard bargain over
it.
Henry : Perhaps she's got her
eye on the bureau as well.
Mrs. Slater : She's got her eye
on the bureau as well.

18. Mrs. Slater : She's never been here since father bought
it. If it was only down here instead of in his room, she'd
never guess it wasn't our own.
Henry : (startled): Amelia! (He rises)

19. Mrs. Slater :
Henry, why shouldn't We bring
that bureau down here now? We
can do it before they come.
Henry : (stupefied)
I wouldn't care to.
Mrs. Slater :
Don't look so daft. Why not?
Henry :
It doesn't seem delicate,
somehow.

20. Mrs. Slater : We could put that shabby old chest of drawers
upstairs where the bureau is now.
Elizabeth could have that and welcome. I've always wanted
to get rid of it. (She points to the drawers.)
Henry :
Suppose they come
when we're doing it.
Mrs. Slater :
I'll fasten the front
door. Get your coat off,
Henry. We'll change it.
(Mrs. Slater goes out to fasten the front door.)
(Henry takes his
coat off. Mrs. Slater
reappears.)

21. Mrs. Slater : I'll run up and move the chairs out of the way.
(Victoria appears,
dressed according
to her mother's
(instructions))
Victoria : What have you got
your coat off for, father?
Henry : Mother and I are going to bring grandfather's
bureau down here.
Victoria :
Are you planning to pinch it?

22. Henry : (Shocked)
No, my child. Grandpa gave it to your mother before he died.
Victoria :
This morning?
Henry :
Yes.
Victoria :
Ah! He was drunk this morning.
(Mrs. Slater appears carrying a handsome clock under her arm.)

23. Mrs. Slater :
I thought I'd fetch this down as well. (She puts it on the mantelpiece.)
Our clock's worth nothing and this always appealed to me.
Victoria :
That's grandpa's clock.
Mrs. Slater :
Be quiet! It's ours now.
Come, Henry, lift your
end.
(Henry and Mrs. Slater, very hot and flushed, stagger in with a pretty
old fashioned bureau containing a locked desk. They put it where the
chest of drawers was, and straighten the ornaments, etc. ) There is a
knock at the door. The knocking is repeated.)

24. (Victoria ushers in Ben and Mrs.
Jordan.
The latter is a stout, complacent
woman with an irritating air of being
always right. She is wearing an outfit
of new mourning.
Ben is also in complete new mourning.
He is rather a jolly little man, but at
present trying to adapt himself to the
regrettable occasion.
Mrs. Jordan sails into the room and
solemnly goes straight to Mrs. Slater
and kisses her.
The men shake hands.)

25. Mrs. Jordan :
Well, Amelia, and so he's gone at last.
Mrs. Slater :
Yes, he's gone. He was seventy-two a
fortnight last Sunday.
(She sniffs back a tear.)
Ben (chirpily):
Now, Amelia, you mustn't give
way. We've all got to die some
time or other.
Mrs. Jordan :
And now perhaps you'll tell us
all about it.

26. Mrs. Slater :
Father had been merry this morning. He went out soon after breakfast
to pay his insurance.
Ben :
My word, it's a good thing he did.
Mrs. Jordan :
He always was thoughtful in that way. He was too honourable to have
'gone‘ without paying his premium.

27. Henry :
And when I came in I found him
undressed sure enough and snug
in bed.
Mrs. Slater :
And when we'd finished dinner I
thought I'd take up a bit of
something on a tray.
He was lying there for all the world as if he was asleep, so I put the
tray down on the bureau-(correcting herself) on the chest of drawers –
and went to waken him. (A pause.)
He was quite cold.
(A pause. They wipe their eyes and sniff back tears.)

28. Mrs. Slater :
(Rising briskly at length; in a
business-like tone) Well, will you
go up and look at him now, or
shall we have tea?
Mrs. Jordan :
What do you say, Ben?
Ben : I'm not particular.
Mrs. Jordan :
(surveying the table) Well, then, if
the kettle's ready, we may as well
have tea first.
(Mrs. Slater puts the kettle on the
fire and gets tea ready.)
Henry :
One thing we may as well decide
now is the announcement in the
papers.

29. Mrs. Jordan :
I was thinking of that. What
would you put? (A pause)
Mrs. Jordan :
Well, we'll think about it
after tea, and then we'll
look through his bits of
things and make a list of
them. There's all the
furniture in his room.
Henry :
There's no jewellery or
valuables of that sort.
Mrs. Jordan :
Except his gold watch. He
promised that to our Jimmy.

30. Mrs. Slater :
Promised your Jimmy! I never heard of that.
Mrs. Jordan :
Oh, but he did, Amelia, when he was living
with us. He was very fond of Jimmy.
Mrs. Slater :
Well, (Amazed) I don't know!
Ben :
Anyhow, there's his insurance
money.
Have you got the receipt for
the premium he paid this
morning?

31. Mrs. Slater :
I've not seen it.
(Victoria jumps up
from the sofa and
comes behind the
table.)
Victoria :
Mother, I don't think
Grandpa went to
pay his insurance
this morning.
Mrs. Slater :
He went out.
Victoria :
Yes, but he didn't go into the
town. He met old Mr. Tattersall
down the street, and they went
off past St. Philip's Church.
Ben :
Do you think
he hasn't paid
it? Was it
overdue?

32. Mrs. Slater :
I should think it was overdue.
Mrs. Jordan :
Something tells me he's not
paid it.
Ben :
The drunken old beggar.
Mrs. Jordan:
He's done it on purpose,
just to annoy us.
Mrs. Slater:
After all I've
done for
him,
having to
put up with
him in the
house these
three years.
It's nothing
short of
swindling.

33. Mrs. Jordan :
I had to put up with him for
five years.
Mrs. Slater :
And you were trying to turn
him over to us all the time.
Mrs. Slater :
Victoria, run upstairs and fetch that
bunch of keys that's on your Grandpa's
dressing-table.
Victoria : (timidly)
In Grandpa's room?
Mrs. Slater :
Yes.

34. Victoria :
I - I don't like to.
Mrs. Slater :
Don't talk so silly. There's no one
can hurt you. (Victoria goes out
reluctantly)
We'll see if he's locked the receipt
up in the bureau.
Ben :
In where? In this thing? (He rises
and examines it.)
Mrs. Jordan :
(also rising)
Where did you
pick that up,
Amelia?
It's new since
last I was here.
(They examine
it closely.)
Mrs. Slater :
Oh - Henry
picked it up
one day.

35. (Victoria returns, very scared. She closes the door after her.)
Victoria :
Mother! Mother!
Mrs. Slater :
What is it, child?
Victoria :
Grandpa's
getting up.
Ben :
What?
Mrs. Slater :
What do you
say?

36. Victoria :
Grandpa's getting up.
Mrs. Jordan :
The child's crazy.
Mrs. Slater :
Don't talk so silly. Don't
you know your
grandpa's dead?
Victoria :
No, no; he's getting up.
I saw him.
(They are transfixed
with amazement; )
(Victoria clings to Mrs.
Slater.)
Ben :
(Suddenly) Hist! Listen.

37. (They look at the door. A slight chuckling is
heard from upstairs.
The door opens, revealing an old man clad in a
faded but gay dressing-gown. He is in his
stockinged feet.
Although over seventy, he is vigorous and well
coloured. His bright, malicious eyes twinkle
under his heavy, reddish-gray eye brows.
He is obviously either the old man ABEL
MERRYWEATHER or else his ghost.)